Aerogels are chemically inert, highly porous ceramic materials that have many applications. For example, aerogels may be used as high transparency insulator structural panels; as face sheets for light transmitting panels and light boxes, as a growth media for algae colonies, as an encapsulant for a controlled-drug release; as synthetic bone(s), synthetic cartilage(s) and synthetic teeth, as a liquid fuel reservoir(s), as an encapsulant(s) of a fire retardant or dye, as a high performance protective coating(s), as an acoustic barrier(s), and so on.
There are, however, a number of major problems with existing batch processes methods for manufacturing aerogels, such as the times required to complete the batch manufacturing process. For example, a typical aerogel manufacturing process begins with an initial sol-gel self-assembly step lasting anywhere from several minutes to several hours or so in which a precursor liquid and a catalyst liquid are combined in a liquid/liquid phase reaction to form a porous structure wherein the pores of the structure are filled with a solvent. This step is followed by processes requiring up to 150-200 hours or so in which the solvent is extracted from the porous structure by an exhaustive solvent removal process, without damaging the porous structure, and thereafter the porous solid structure is finally annealed, or cured, to achieve the desired physical properties of the aerogel.
The present invention provides a method for the production of aerogels that addresses and provides solutions for the above and other associated problems of the prior art manufacturing processes.